Web3: Mysten raises $300MM for Sui chain; Terra might get its Prism DeFi derivatives back; Sony Music files trademark for NFT auth; Institutional crypto dark pools from Enclave

Gm Fintech Futurists —

Welcome to our Web3 newsletter, covering DeFi, digital assets, NFTs, and the emergence of the financial metaverse. This content is premium only — give it a share, and leave suggestions in the comments!

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DeFi Protocols and Digital Assets

DeFi Protocol ‘Prism’ Considers A Return To Terra Classic (LUNC) - The Crypto Basic 

The Terra bonfire continues to burn, with multiple versions of the bankrupt chain trying to restart the engine.

There have been a number of attemps to revive things and various forks. One proposal for LUNA Classic (LUNC) introduces a 1.2% tax rate on every transaction, sent to a wallet to burn the tokens, thereby deflating the 6.9 trillion supply. There are mixed reactions to the proposal, with Binance showing support, but Howard Greenberg, a crypto educator at Prosper Trading Academy, saying: “This is a total speculation play and basically turns LUNC into a meme coin at this point.” We think that playing with supply is important, but having real demand is more important.

To that end, applications have to run and work on the network. As an example, derivatives protocol Prism may return to the Terra Classic network once the burn proposal goes through.

PRISM @prism_protocol

Who would like to see @prism_protocol working again on Terra Classic after the burn changes? $LUNC $USTC

Prism, launched in February 2022, offered liquid yield tokens on staked LUNA tokens and had $800MM in TVL, $70MM in liquidity, and $3B in annualized trade volume before the Terra collapse. The TVL is now $6.9MM, down 99%+. Another Terra protocol, DeFi credit protocol Mars, also lost 99% of its TVL post-collapse. After the collapse, Prism went silent for months, unlike other Terra protocols that made swift adjustments — e.g., Astroport relaunched. Users thought Prism developers abandoned the project, but on July 15th, Prism relaunched with a new roadmap.

Prism Protocol Relaunch

For the relaunch, Prism unveiled cLUNA, an auto-compounding liquid staking derivative of LUNA. cLUNA was rebuilt to the ICS-20 token standard, which allows cLUNA to be used across Cosmos Zones that are IBC (Inter-Blockchain Communication) enabled. We understand that to mean it can be used in the various versions of Terra.

We also think that what these chains needs is less financial engineering, derivatives, and splicing of risk, and more real economic activity of people performing labor to build digital goods that other people want to buy and use.

Defiance Debuts ETF To Short Blockchain Companies - Blockworks

DeFi protocol Token NFD Crashes By 99% After A Flash Loan Attack - Cointelegraph

Coinbase Looking To Acquire $1.6B Of MakerDAO’s USDC - Blockworks

Source

This one is important. Coinbase wants to provide Maker a 1.5% APY on $1.6B of USDC. That’s $25MM or so of operating budget per year, which is enough for DAO expenses. Also, it is contrary to Maker’s desire to switch out of real world assets and into decentralized assets (i.e., ETH). More complexity to come here.

Voyager To Liquidate Assets At Auction - Blockworks

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Cryptoeconomics and Blockchain Protocols

Former Meta Execs Raise $300MM To ‘Accelerate Adoption’ Of Sui Blockchain - Cointelegraph 

Sui Blockchain Benefits

Mysten Labs, developers of the Sui blockchain, raised $300MM in a Series B funding round led by FTX Ventures. The raise values Mysten Labs at $2B+. Sui is a Layer 1 blockchain that runs smart contracts built with Move, a programming language designed at Meta to support its Libra initiative, later rebranded Diem and abandoned in January 2022.